1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for managing application software, and also a server and a communications system therefor. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method for providing the replication function to a SIP-AP (Session Initiation Protocol-Application) server in a Web-VoIP (Web-Voice over Internet Protocol) cooperative AP environment where the Web-AP server environment providing AP (Application: application software) in the Web (World Wide Web) environment is cooperative with the VoIP server environment (SIP server environment) based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), a typical protocol for implementing VoIP protocol.
2. Description of the Background Art
Recently, application-server-based systems are widely built to develop Web applications. For example, the application server technology in the Java (trade name) environment is defined by J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) with this tendency in mind. On the other hand, SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) based VoIP (Voice Over IP) is widely used as one of Internet services.
Although such applications are generally developed independently, a Web-AP/SIP-AP cooperative server is also available which simultaneously controls applications, each of which uses one of multiple network protocols, to provide high value-added, integrated applications.
FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram showing a typical functional configuration of a conventional Web-AP/SIP-AP cooperative server where a Web-AP server and a SIP-AP server are integrated. As shown in FIG. 2, a conventional Web-AP/SIP-AP cooperative server 2 has a configuration in which a Web-AP 3 and a SIP-AP 4 are included as Servlet containers 5 and 11 and in which the SIP based SIP-AP server function is cooperative with an existing Web-AP server.
The specifications disclosed on the website, www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=116, “The Java Community Process (SM) Program-JSRs: Java Specification Requests-Detail JSR#116, [Online], Java Community Process, searched on May 6, 2005, can be used as the specifications for the SIP Servlet, and the replication function of the SIP-Servlet is implemented based on the specifications of the SIP Servlet. Even when a host error occurs, the replication function of the SIP Servlet allows another host to continue the SIP session based on the replica of the SIP session.
The replication function of the Web-AP server is implemented in many methods. One of the typical methods is to establish the synchronization of HTTP session information among two or more Web-AP servers, i.e. to generate an HTTP session replica.
For example, another website, http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-5.0-doc/cluster-ho wto.html, “The Apache Jakarta Tomcat5 Servlet/JSR Container, [Online], The Apache Jakarta Project, searched on May 6, 2005, discloses the replication function used in Tomcat.
As described above, a Web-AP/SIP-AP cooperative server is a server where a Web-AP server and a SIP-AP server are cooperative with each other.
However, one of the problems with such a Web-AP/SIP-AP cooperative server is that the replication function of the SIP-AP server is provided separately from the replication function provided by the Web-AP server. This means that two different replication server functions, each of which performs its own replication function, are present in the Web-VoIP cooperative AP environment, thus decreasing efficiency. In addition, because the replication functions are independent of each other, it is difficult for one of them to use and control the other.
Therefore, for use by a server that provides a cooperative application that associates applications with each other, each of which is based on one of different network protocols, there is a need for an system and a method for managing an application that can use the replication function of each server efficiently to implement efficient replication.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a application management system and a method therefor which may efficiently use the replication function of servers providing a cooperative application which associates applications with each other to implement efficient replication.